Cheers arose for a new effort to get high school seniors into college—cheers, though as of yet no hard data to prove it’s working.

Those cheers arose from officials last week at an event honoring high school seniors who spent a year counseling classmates to get to college.

They did claim success in changing school “culture.” They said they were not ready to release data demonstrating whether they’ve succeeded in getting kids into more, and better, colleges.

College Summit, a private outfit hired by the school district, convened the awards luncheon last Thursday for 68 seniors who have served as “peer leaders” for their classmates under the program. College Summit runs similar programs in 42 districts nationwide.

As part of the College Summit curriculum, rising seniors at three city high schools enlisted in college-going “boot camp” last summer. Then they returned to their schools to help fellow students apply for college. The program launched as a pilot at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School in 2010; it expanded last year to include Metropolitan Business Academy and James Hillhouse High School.

The effort is part of a broader citywide school reform drive that officials promised to judge based on metrics and numerical benchmarks. After celebrating the students’ work last week, College Summit agreed to provide the Independent with results of a study detailing the progress of the program so far. Then it changed its mind and declined.

As peer leaders, Montrell Johnson (pictured) and other students got summer training in the college application process. Then they brought the word back to their schools. Back at Coop, Montrell sat down with three other students and helped them fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)—a major hurdle kids need to pass before getting federal money.

Kids find the form confusing, and long. Montrell said it took him about 20 minutes to help a fellow student fill out.

Montrell said he helped over 20 of his peers write personal statements for their college applications. He admitted to getting “senioritis” after getting into college. He said College Summit helped him stay focused—and understand that the college could yank his acceptance letter if his grades suffered. Now he’s headed to graduate this month and head to Fisher College in Boston in the fall.

Mayor John DeStefano called students like Montrell key to the city’s effort to boost the city’s college enrollment rate.

Only 59 percent of New Haven Public School grads enroll in college right after graduating from high school, according to the school district. The mayor’s school reform drive aims to boost that number by 5 percent each year. DeStefano said in order to do that, the city needs to build a college-going culture in its schools, led in part by students themselves.

“You’re microphones and beacons on a hill,” DeStefano said, “leading not by what you say, but by what you do.”

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College Summit founder and CEO J.B. Schramm (pictured) said the company uses two main metrics to measure its success: Enrollment in, and persistence in, college.

That data was unavailable for this story. In some cases because it’s too early to gather meaningful data. In one case the company declined to turn over a report it has prepared on last year’s graduates.

College Summit collects the data from the National Student Clearinghouse, based on students first and last names and birth dates. The company uses a “baseline” college enrollment rate. It looks at how many kids enroll in college the fall after graduating a given high school. The “baseline” college enrollment rate is the average of that number for the three years before College Summit comes to town.

After one year in a school, College Summit looks at how many high school seniors—including peer leaders like Montrell—ended up enrolling in college. That data exists only for Coop High’s Class of 2011, because College Summit has been in the school for two years.

Veronica DeLandro, director of New Haven’s College Summit program, said Thursday she would send over the company’s College Enrollment Rate report for the Class of 2011. About an hour later, she said she was unable to send the report because it has not been finalized and because she has not shared the data with schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo.

DeLandro said the company has the data but needs to do more analysis it before its release. The company will eventually release an analysis of where last year’s 100 Co-op high school seniors ended up—how many went to two-year or four-year colleges, or no college at all. The report aims to give the school feedback on how to better prepare kids for post-high-school success, she said.

DeLandro did share a snapshot of how this year’s seniors prepared for college. Throughout the year, College Summit tracks the number of personal essays written, FAFSA apps completed, and college applications filled out.

As of last week, 79 percent of the seniors at New Haven’s three participating College Summit high schools had applied to college. That’s 100 percent of Metro seniors, 65 percent of Hillhouse seniors, and 90 percent at Co-op.

A total of 88 percent had taken the SAT: 95 percent at Metro, 84 percent at Hillhouse and 91 percent at Co-op.

And 79 percent had filled out the FAFSA: 92 percent at Metro, 70 percent at Hillhouse and 86 percent at Co-op.

Dolores Garcia-Blocker, the city school official overseeing the College Summit partnership, said the district doesn’t have a baseline to compare those numbers to because it did not gather the college application data prior to College Summit’s arrival.

Coop Principal Frank Costanzo said the college acceptance rate at his school has risen from the low 80s to about 90 percent over the past three years; he didn’t have enrollment data and College Summit declined to give the hard numbers.

As Metro and Hillhouse enter their second year with College Summit, the company will be watching for their college enrollment rate, too.

Nationwide, College Summit claims to boost enrollment rates by 12 to 18 percent over four years, according to DeLandro.

CEO Schramm said starting this fall, the company will also be able to track college persistence, meaning whether kids stay in college after their freshman year.

Only half of New Haven Public School grads enroll in a second year of college within two years of graduating from high school, according to the school district. Affordability is the number one reason students drop out, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

While it’s too early to see whether students trained by College Summit will stay in college, some officials said they already see progress inside school walls.

“There’s a culture shift in the district around college-going,” said Garcia-Blocker. She said that’s taking place not just in high schools, but all the way down to pre-K, where students are learning to set their sights on their plans beyond high school.

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College is so thoroughly ingrained in students that they end up making bad decisions. My neighbor’s kid said she was going to Gateway to get her basics out of the way and then head to culinary school. I asked her why she’s going to Gateway and she shrugged and said, “that’s what you do.”. I told her that culinary school doesn’t require those classes and that she’d be wasting her money.

We mustn’t be pushing unneeded college on our children. I hope New Haven Promise works. But we have to remember that experience is also crucial in the job market.

posted by: QAVE on June 4, 2012 11:46am

Wouldn’t basic skills and vocational training be more advantageous for a school system that actually graduates so few. We should stop devaluing the high school diploma and end the stigma that college equals success. It is not the role of free public education to prepare students for college where they get in debt and learn to party. The role of free public education is to prepare students to become PRODUCTIVE MEMBERS of the U.S. ECONOMY, no more no less. After gaining a basic education and graduating with a work skill if then a high school graduate decides to go to college then it is appropriate because that young person made the decision, however, if he or she decides to utilize the skills they gained in high school and contribute to the country’s economy, either result is a win for the student and the country. Last week Apple CEO Tim Cook said he would like to move more of his company’s manufacturing to America but there was not enough skilled labor to operate the stamps and dies. Can you imagine that in the U.S.A., the country that invented modern manufacturing, we don’t have people to operate machines. Up until the late 80’every high school in the country used had a metal shop(and other vocational training facilities) where students learned how to WORK. Teaching students how to “think” has not bode well for the U.S.economy because we now have several generations of high school drop-outs and college graduates who do not work because they are home “thinking.”

posted by: QAVE on June 4, 2012 1:07pm

“Lasater found his company [Higher One] under fire after a report came out Wednesday from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund. The report, “The Campus Debit Card Trap,” targeted the New Haven-based company as the biggest player in a new field of financial middlemen it accused of “skimming millions in fees from student aid using debit-card-linked student IDs.” -New Haven Independent 6/4/12…... I use this clip to illustrate my previous point: college is the Great American Scam. This year college debt surpassed mortgage debt as the top liability for Americans, what this means is that the aimless strategy of sending students off to college has destroyed the real “American Dream” of home ownership and substituted it with a contrived dogma that college is the key to success. Think about who pays and who benefits…We pay the colleges through governemnt-backed student loans, students go in debt for life, no economy in the history of the world could support the number of white-collar grads our job market is now faced with and the universities are bastions of wealth and privilege. Cathedrals of Learning who don’t even pay property taxes. Beautiful!

posted by: Blue on June 5, 2012 3:39pm

College is not the answer for some.

Students are being misled into believing that without a college degree, one cannot succeed. Plumbers, mechanics, electricians and carpenters are all valuable members of society who usually make more money than many college graduates.

Further, prospective teachers are now being discouraged from obtaining a masters degree because they’ll price themselves out of most school districts.

Once again, this is about NHPS showing off instead of doing what’s best for the kids.